Thursday, June 17, 2010

unreachable things

I just want to eat a snack. There are at least two snack tins strategically placed around the teachers` office, but I have no idea if I am allowed to eat the snacks. I am starving. I only brought my lunch (which isn`t for another hour at least), a banana, and a piece of bread to eat today. I doubt that I am supposed to eat out of the snack tin because there is probably a money collection every month for the snack tin, just like there is a Coffee Club and you have to pay ￥1000 each month to drink the coffee. Or ￥50 (which is like $0.50) per cup. I might just pay the ￥50 to drink a cup and hope that it fills me up.

Everything seems worse when I am hungry and the sun isn`t shining, like today. I got a rejection within hours of sending out my short story. It was from Word Riot. The story I sent to Glimmer Train last month was also rejected. I know that being rejected isn`t necessarily a sign that I suck, but today it kind of feels like it. I keep thinking of all the things that I wish I was but that I`m not. I wish I was taller and prettier. I wish people called me `gorgeous` in picture comments on Facebook. I wish I was funnier. I wish I could figure out how to type quotation marks on a Japanese keyboard. I wish I wasn`t a procrastinator and that I would start training for the half-marathon already. I wish I was a really, really dedicated writer, and that I could sit at a computer for hours typing and be content.

I was just watching the second graders play volleyball in the gym. All of them could play. I couldn`t even dribble a basketball when I was in the eighth grade. It just occurred to me, sitting there on the gym floor, that I`ve never really won anything my whole life. Aside from Honors Day in public school, when they give out those paper certificates like candy on Halloween. But I mean like a contest or an award for something that really matters to me. I was a finalist for the Roy Powell Award in college and in high school, we got second place one year at One-Act Play, but I`ve never won, been first place, had my name somewhere for my achievements. I don`t know if it even matters whether or not you win some contest that someone set up, but I really want to. It just seems like I`m never talented or pretty or smart enough to be a winner.

I don`t write because I want to win contests. It`s just something that I`ve always wanted to do. I write because it helps me understand the world and myself. I write so that one day maybe I can give someone that feeling that I get when I read a great story or book. I want to connect with someone else and teach them about themselves, about humanity.

So I guess today I`m just in a bad mood. Maybe I`ll sneak into the snack tin when no one else is around.